


The Cloaked Witch

by Noxmortis



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Gen, Genderbending, Reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-02 05:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4048099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noxmortis/pseuds/Noxmortis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, all the kingdoms of Albion gathered to sign an agreement banning magic, resulting in the longest and most devastating genocide the world has ever seen. Two hundred years later, the sorceress known as Merlin was born. Having escaped to one of the last safe havens for magical beings, Merlin grew up training to protect her people. But times are getting darker, and she must travel to the Kingdom of Camelot in order to save the last of her kin.</p><p>Or, the story of Merlin in which magic has been banned for over two hundred years, and the druids didn't let the most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the earth go untrained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up: This story is going to be sort of like a compilation of one-shots. It's going to span a lot of years, and I only plan on writing the interesting bits, so each chapter, or each few chapters, will be their own set of events. There will still be a fluid overarching plot, though.

As soon as Merlin’s mother shook her awake, the child knew something was wrong.  
  
“Mom?” she whispered.  
  
“Time to get up, sweety. Come on,” Hunith replied. Her voice trembled.  
  
Merlin swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “What’s going on?”  
  
"Nothing. Your father was woken by the wards. It’s probably nothing. But we need to go.”  
  
Fear washed over the five-year-old. “What?” she asked. They had been careful. Both her and her father had never used their magic in public. They hid their abilities and kept on the run, covering their tracks and using false names. There was no way the Seekers could have found them. There shouldn’t have been any leads for the knights to pick up. But her father’s wards could only be tripped by one thing, and that was the approach of the elite group of knights dedicating to finding and eradicating magic.  
  
Eradicating magic. The goal of every kingdom everywhere. Over two hundred years ago, magic had been banned. Any creature associated with magic was to be killed. Thousands of magic users and magical species of all kinds were hunted down within the first year of the decree. Centuries later and the bloodshed still hadn’t been stopped.  
  
Merlin’s father strode over to her small form and knelt, enveloping her tiny hands in his. “You need to be brave, little bird. Listen to your mother, and remember, you must never tell anyone who you are. And always be aware-”  
  
“Stick to the shadows, keep in disguise, and always have two open eyes,” she muttered, repeating the mantra that had been drilled into her head as soon as she could talk. “I know, daddy.”  
  
He kissed her forehead. “I know you know, little bird. Just humor your father one last time.”  
  
Merlin’s lips trembled. “Aren’t you coming with us?”  
  
Balinor smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll be catching up with you later.”  
  
_Liar,_ Merlin thought. She may have been five, but she was smart. Really smart. In fact, whenever she had to go outside, she had to pretend to be more stupid than she actually was. Normal kids her age didn’t understand the things she did. _You’re going to stay here. And you’re going to hold the knights off so me and mom can escape. And the knights will… they’ll kill_ …  
  
Her eyes filled with tears. She threw herself onto her father. “I love you, daddy,” she whispered, beginning to sob.  
  
His arms tightened around her, before pulling away. He smoothed her hair down with one hand, brushing her tears away with the other. “I love you too, little bird. Always remember that.”  
  
A moment passed in which Balinor seemed to be memorizing her eyes, then stood. “Hunith-” he began, voice rough.  
  
“I know,” Merlin’s mother said, one hand pressed against her mouth. “I know.”  
  
He took in a shaky breath. “You two take care of each other,” he said, before pulling Hunith into a quick kiss and stepping out the door.  
  
Merlin’s mother stared after him.  
  
“Mom?”  
  
Hunith broke out of her trance. “Get your bag,” she said.  
  
Merlin noded, and knelt. The child pulled out a rucksack from underneath her bed. It had clothes, food, and a full waterskin. There was never a moment in which the bag hadn’t been packed.  
  
Hunith had a similar one slung over her shoulder.  
  
“Mom,” Merlin said, then stopped. She didn’t know what to say. She was scared, terrified, and she missed her father already, and this had been her worst nightmare ever since she learned why magic was bad.  
  
Hunith gripped Merlin’s hand, tugging the little girl forward. “I know, sweety. But we need to leave.”  
  
“But-”  
  
Outside, Balinor roared a spell. A wave of heat washed over the two, penetrating through the walls of the wooden cabin. They could hear the Seekers shouting.  
  
“Run, Merlin!”  
  
The lithe girl darted forward, sprinting through the back door and bolting for the treeline. She was running faster than she ever had before. Her breaths came in painful gasps, driven both by the rigorous movement and the despair climbing up her throat. Her legs were burning. Tears streamed from her eyes.  
  
The world disappeared into a blur. She didn’t know where she was, only that she was moving forward, getting faster, becoming more desperate. At some point she had raised her arms to protect her face from the branches whipping by. Dimly, she could feel small cuts stinging her forearms and a thin trail of blood dripping down her cheek.  
  
She could hear the iron footsteps of the knights behind her.  
  
Sobs ripped themselves from her throat, but she continued running. She wouldn’t let them catch her. She wouldn’t.  
  
Exhaustion weighed her down. Her legs were dripping with water. _I must have run through a stream._ She was tired, so tired, and gradually an all-encompassing numbness overtook her.  
  
She didn’t know how long she had been running. It was as if she was asleep, and some other being was moving her forward. Her awareness of the world consisted solely of fear and the weariness dragging her mind down, down, down…  
  
The motion of moving one leg and then the other became automatic. She didn’t think she could stop running if she tried. The momentum was too strong, too long kept up to be abandoned. Later, she would view it as a miracle that when she finally fainted, she fell to the ground instead of continuing onward.  
  
As it was, the child collapsed onto a bed of fall leaves, her face streaked with weariness and tears.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pain.  
  
"-waking up?”  
  
“I hope not. She should sleep for at least another day.”  
  
“Who do you think she is?”  
  
“One of us.”  
  
Numbness.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“That cut on her cheek looks bad.”  
  
“It’ll heal.”  
  
Whispered words in the tongue of her father. Warmth. Fading awareness.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunlight.  
  
“-you’re gonna love it here. No king and his army could defeat us, even if they could find us!”  
  
“Don’t talk like that, Gareth.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“It’s bad luck.”  
  
“Bad luck my-”  
  
Darkness.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“-find her parents, Iseldir?”  
  
Muffled words. A sigh.  
  
"Well, she’s got a family now.”  
  
Panic. Where’s mom?  
  
“Indeed she does. Welcome home, little one.”  
  
Sleep.


	2. Chapter Two

Merlin opened her eyes and rolled out of bed, tumbling to the ground. Before she had even fully gotten her feet back under her she was moving forward, stumbling across the room, then outright running. _The Seekers had caught her. She had to get away._

She was halfway across the room before her senses caught up to her. She hadn’t been restrained, so either they thought that she didn’t posses magic, or they had believed that she wouldn’t wake up so soon. Either way, she needed to leave, preferably without attracting attention.

Slower now, more carefully, Merlin stole across the room and pressed her ear to the door. She didn’t hear anything. Holding her breath, the young girl pushed the door open and glanced down the hall. It was empty.

The girl stepped out of the room, shutting the door with the utmost caution. She winced as it still made a noise, but there were no alarmed shouts or hurried footsteps, so she assumed that no one heard.

“Now,” she muttered, “which way to go?”

The hallway ran in two directions. The walls arched high above her head, yet there were no windows. The entire corridor gave off the distinct impression of being underground, which wasn’t unexpected in a Seeker base. Although neither way was entirely promising, she decided to go right. The floor in that direction seemed to slant upward slightly.

She could feel the beats of her heart, apprehension spreading like melting ice through her veins, as she moved down the stone corridor. The hallway turned, ending in another door. Even without pressing her ear against it, she could hear the sound of voices coming from behind it.

In her head, she said a few words that her father had told her never to say out loud.

_Dad._

The sudden thought brought up emotions Merlin vainly tried to ignore. It was like she had been repressing the thought of him until now, hiding reality from herself, and now that she needed to focus it was all crashing down on her at once. He had sacrificed himself so she and her mother could escape. He might be dead, and for what? Merlin was here, trapped, and her mother…

She didn’t know. Merlin racked her brain, trying to recall what had happened. She could remember her mother telling her to run, to go, to leave her dad behind, and then… then she did. She ran.

“I left mom behind,” she whispered, raising a hand and pressing it against her mouth. Her lips trembled. “I left mom behind.” 

A muffled sob left her lips.

“Oh, goddess,” she said, sinking down to the floor. “I left mom behind!” The realization knocked into her, sapping her strength. She didn’t know how long she would have stayed there, on the floor, shuddering, had it not been for the voices coming from the room she had previously fled.

“The girl’s not here!”

“Ugh, really? Iseldir’s going to kill us.”

The voices belonged to teenagers, younger than Merlin would have expected of Seekers, and one of them was female. For a moment she hesitated. Girls weren’t allowed to be knights. Perhaps the two were only servants, and she could talk to them, get them to help her escape.

“It was your call to not restrain her, not mine! If she’s run off, it’s on your head.”

On second thought, that didn’t sound like they’d be willing to help her escape. She shakily stood up, wiping her eyes and gathering herself. Soon she’d have to run or fight, and she couldn’t do that effectively while crying.

“Like you would've. And it’s gonna’ be on both our heads. Here, you take that way, I’ll take this way. She can’t have gone far.”

Merlin heard one of them approach and decided to run. She shoved the door behind her open, revealing a set of stairs. A multitude of voices drifted down the structure. Although weary to expose herself, she figured if there were enough people, she could disappear into a crowd. It was better than staying where she was, at any rate. A slim chance was better than none.

The girl ran up the steps, taking them two at a time. Behind her, the door slammed shut then open again.

“Hey! Stop! Gareth, she’s over here!”

She pumped her legs harder.

“Seriously, just wait a moment!"

Merlin ignored the command.

She burst out of the stairwell onto an empty platform. Merlin clenched her fists. The noise was coming from below her, she’d have to jump to escape into the crowd. She ran to the edge to see how high she was and froze. 

The person chasing her came up to Merlin’s side, breathing heavily.

“Where am I?” Merlin asked, her voice small.

“Asylum. You’re at Asylum,” the pursuer said, still recovering from the short sprint. It was the girl, who upon closer inspection looked to be about twelve.

Below Merlin stretched out a cavern, longer and wider than the throne room of any castle. The floor was at least fifteen stories below where she was standing, and the roof of the cave arced up just as high. She was standing on a balcony, one of many, but even from her position she could see the intricate runes carved into the middle of the floor.

But the most impressive thing was how the cavern was lit. There were no windows or skylights, no torches or lanterns. But in large rings, hovering in the air, stacked one story above each other, were glowing white orbs.

Magic. In a place where all could see.

_So they aren't Seekers then._

“What is this place?”

“It's a sanctuary, created during the first Great Purge,” said Merlin’s other pursuer, who had just exited the stairwell.

“By the way,” he said, “I’m Gareth, and this is Elizabeth.” Merlin didn’t turn to look at them, too busy gaping at the sight before her.

“Sanctuary?” she manage to get out.

“Yep. When magic first started to be persecuted, the Druids gathered at three places to hide from those who would hurt them. They set up runes - you can see them there,” he said, pointing at the markings Merlin had noticed earlier, “so that no one could find this place unless they had permission.”

“We’ve had to add to them, of course,” Elizabeth interjected. “As the Seekers get more advanced in their techniques of finding sorcerers, we have to use more complex methods to hide from them. One of the ways-”

“Yeah, but that’s not important right now,” Gareth said, interrupting. “Let me tell my story. So,” he continued, slinging an arm across Merlin’s shoulders, “the Druids gathered here, making their own little community, hollowing out this rock with their tricks. But as things got worse, they started to send out volunteers to find other peaceful magic users-”

“And species,” Elizabeth added.

Gareth waved a hand and plowed on “-and various friendly species, bringing them to safety. And so the three sanctuaries were formed, Haven, Hope, and Asylum. And yes, we’re aware exactly how clever those names are. Complain to someone else, I didn’t name them. But the important thing is that the sanctuaries are places where people like you and me can grow up, hone our skills, live, and not get burned alive.”

“Anyway,” Elizabeth said loudly, derailing that topic before it could get started. “We still send out people to find other magic users. But as the years pass, we come across less and less. Really, the majority of the people you’ll see here were born here and are Druids, but you’ll occasionally come across others like you. Like us.”

Merlin nodded, although she couldn’t fully absorb what they were saying. The idea of being able to use magic freely, to live without that constant fear and dread, was hard to grasp.

Deciding to focus on something else for the time being, she asked, “But how did you find me?”

Both Elizabeth and Gareth fell silent.

Merlin broke out of her awed trance and turned to face them. “How did you find me?” she repeated, heart picking up speed once more. A dark feeling crept up on her.

“Um,” Gareth said, hesitant.

Elizabeth knelt to look directly into Merlin’s eyes. “We found you near here, passed out from exhaustion. There were Seeker dogs on your scent a few miles away. We took you back here, and our scouts looked around for any others. We didn’t know if you were alone, you see...” she trailed off.

“What?” Merlin said. But she felt tears rising in her eyes, and knew what was coming even before Gareth put a hand on her shoulder.

“We couldn’t find your dad,” he said gently, “but we did find your house. And judging by the devastation left by the fight, he didn’t make it. I’m sorry. As for your mother, she’s…” This time it was Gareth at a loss for words.

“She’s downstairs,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll take you to her.”

Merlin wasn’t so naive as to hope at that statement. But that didn’t make it hurt any less when she sat there, face pressed against the white sheet covering her mother, trembling arms wrapped around Hunith’s still body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to MoonlyMoon for leaving the sweet comment! It was much appreciated.


End file.
